A podcast all about Japanese cartoons and comics as discussed by three self-proclaimed experts in the world of anime and manga! Plus anime news / reviews, coverage of classic anime, hentai / yaoi, and much, much more. Updated every week. We hope.

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For Show # 4, Gerald talks about the Often Overlooked Hakugei: Legend of Moby Dick, Daryl’s Anime Then and Now compares the original Area 88 OAVs of the 1980s to its 2004 TV series remake, and Clarissa reviews the BL title Sensitive Pornograph. We apologize for the audio quality of this episode.

For this episode we’ve sort of gone off the deep end and have included some actual yaoi content (well, according to Clarissa it’s not). [Clarissa: I said it’s not gay porn, which technically it isn’t.] But don’t be scared away; as usual, we hope to have something for everyone, so check out each section. This episode proved to be a significant challenge as new recording methods proved to be rather detrimental to our editing process. Damn, is recording audio really supposed to be this hard?

Introduction (0:00 – 8:29)

We now have a completely new method of being contacted since we now have a voice mail account so be sure to get your thoughts to us either by our regular email address, animeworldorder@gmail.com or call our new voicemail at 206-666-4AWO. We look forward to getting your lunatic ravings and actually playing them on air. We also check out some viewer mail, one by a person who’s actually watched Zambot 3, and by several people who say that Sousei no Aquarion was not exactly the show we thought it was.

A picture of the Aquarion team climaxing to form the robot (probably not work safe)

Lets News! (8:29 – 18:54)

Kevin Lilliard, who runs Fan’s View, is back in the hospital again following his Ohayocon heart attack mentioned in last week’s show. The man who made “otaku” a really bad word, Tsutomu Miyazaki, is also in the news. This guy is so horrible me makes the GENOM corporation look friendly (hey, I’m writing the entry this time, and I’ll put in as many old school references as I want [Surat: You forget GENOM was in the remake as well])! We check out the new Sony Reader that’ll display manga: witness how high the resolution is, how clean the pictures look, and balk at the insanely high price Sony will probably ask for it. Genshiken season 2 has also been announced! This is a show we at Anime World Order love since we basically embody the characters (note: currently the entry for the announcement for season 2 has been taken down, so we’re not sure if we’ve been pranked). All this and a New York Times article on anime that…actually gets it RIGHT?

In this new segment, we compare and contrast a classic anime title with its more modern remake. Daryl kicks this one off by talking about the original Area 88 (released years ago by Central Park Media then never entirely released on DVD before going out of print) and its more recent remake (available in its entirety on DVD from ADV Films). As is standard, this is yet another 30-45 minute speech edited down to 15; Gerald and Clarissa are too terrified to speak up lest the terror go on for even longer than it would otherwise.

Anime on DVD forum post by ADV’s David Williams regarding the US music alterations

Review: Sensitive Pornograph (51:19 – 1:09:30)

You see how the description at the top of the page mentions yaoi? We figured after nearly a month, we should make good on that threat. Clarissa reviews the yaoi title (BL, whatever…it’s all guys having sex with guys; if she wanted this done correctly, she’d edit this herself) [Clarissa: Don’t worry, the English speaking fandom and companies can’t decide what the hell they want to call it, so you could use any and be right or wrong depending entirely on who you ask. But for clarity I usually go with the Japanese, so it’s ?????/Boys Love/BL.] Sensitive Pornograph while Daryl and Gerald trivialize her interests. We apologize that the audio quality on this segment isn’t quite up to par. It’s either because of the recording procedure or the fact that everyone edits their own segments. I’m guessing it’s the recording.

Somehow everyone survived the new technical hazards brought on with this episode. We do the obligatory begging for feedback, especially with regards to show length now that that’s two shows where the running time was about 75 minutes instead of 60, and do a preview for next week. Gerald vows revenge against the Sensitive Pornograph segment by doing a review of the incredibly horrible hentai title Gonad the Barbarian, Daryl does a creator spotlight on the one true Jigoku Manga master Kazuo Koike, and Clarissa tells everyone what they’ve been missing out on by not having watched They Were Eleven. Of course, that’s only if time permits following the interview with our very first guest on the show, the Hunter S. Thompson of anime journalism (for the English language), Patrick Macias! Not only is he an expert on Japanese cult cinema, Patrick is smarter than us in all conceivable aspects AND could KO us all with his pugilistic talents.

This one’s all about the robots. We talk about why most anime fans don’t really like robot shows, then Daryl reviews Gundam SEED Destiny: Final Plus and Gerald does a Creator Spotlight on Shoji Kawamori. Double ouch. Clarissa wraps things up by talking about The King of Braves GaoGaiGar.

We’ve decided to deviate from the usual course and do an episode devoted entirely to mecha and giant robots. We know, mecha is easily the least popular genre among anime fans in this day and age. So if this is your first time listening, please know that not all of our episodes are like this.

Introduction (0:00 – 9:24)

We open things up by talking about why mecha anime is unpopular even though a lot of people commonly associate anime with robots. Plus, since it was requested, we talk about Zambot 3! Did we mention none of us have SEEN Zambot 3?

Okay guys, here’s the thing. This was originally like, 30 minutes of Daryl describing the entire Gundam SEED / SEED Destiny ordeal in detail, and since neither Gerald nor Clarissa have any knowledge of SEED anything, it’s just Daryl talking for most of the time. Only tragedy can result from this. In an effort to not bore people, we have inserted a promo for Corn Pone Flicks that’s not so much a promo as it is the audio to their very first short.

After subjecting everyone to a review like that, the least we could do is plug the podcast of a guy who specializes in doing anime reviews. We may not always agree with Aaron, but he’s exceptionally thorough. We’ll be sure to send him a promo to run on his show just as soon as we can actually get around to recording them.

Rotating Segment: Creator Spotlight — Shoji Kawamori (36:46 – 51:45)

In this new segment idea, Gerald tells us all about Shoji Kawamori’s career as both a mecha designer and a director while highlighting his strengths and weaknesses. Is this sort of thing interesting to people? Do Japanese language websites in the show notes help anyone out? I know I can’t read them. Let us know via your feedback.

Clarissa opts to discuss GaoGaiGar as the overlooked anime for this week. Sure, GaoGaiGar is very well known among mecha fans, but non-mecha fans don’t know that they should give it a shot too. Too bad all of them got scared off once Daryl started going on about Gundam, huh?

We’re really sorry that this episode is as long as it was. Currently we try to shoot for around an hour long running time. Next time, Daryl premieres a new segment in which he compares a classic anime title to its corresponding contemporary remake. He’s chosen Area 88 to be first with that. Gerald chooses a different kind of remake for his Often Overlooked pick in the Osamu Dezaki/Akio Sugino title Hakugei: The Legend of Moby Dick, and Clarissa’s review is going to contain the thing that we all knew this show would end up containing sooner or later, YAOI. She’ll be reviewing Sensitive Pornograph. We figure that’ll rebalance the fandom scale now that we’ve talked mecha for an episode.